Tag Archives: Budget 2013

Jeremy Priestley, Director, Berkeleys comments on the Budget 2013 and its implications for the prime property market in Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs, Poole, Dorset:

“The additional assistance for buyers via the Funding for Lending and Help to Buy schemes is, of course, welcome, particularly since the resurgence of activity in the upper-market levels needs to be under-pinned by the ability of all the lower value segments to function efficiently.

Thus, the extension of interest-free equity loans to those who are not first-time buyers and on new-build properties worth up to £600,000 will enable many more people to move up the housing ladder and so “unlock” some of the logjam that has had such a stultifying effect locally.

That said, negative sentiment cannot be finally put aside in that there is still the looming spectre of a change of government in 2015, even if the Chancellor does succeed in stimulating some growth with his new-found infrastructure funds. The negative impact on confidence and on house prices that such an event would presage via the potential advent of a mansion tax, or any other form of wealth or capital taxation, as well as further tightening of the already punitive Stamp Duty Land Tax regime, especially at the top end, would be very significant, especially for the area of Sandbanks, Canford Cliffs, Branksome Park and other areas surrounding Poole Harbour, Dorset.

On the upside, it has been however heartening recently to see that there is an increasing sense of reality returning to the mind-set of some vendors – prices are being reduced, in some case pretty drastically – and this in turn is producing spots of resurgent activity.”